


You don't do it on purpose, but you make me shake

by residualaffection



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pre-Canon, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 15:37:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/838534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/residualaffection/pseuds/residualaffection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long before the events of Thor (2011), Sif and Loki each have reason to be discontented with their lot in Asgard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“And then!” It had gotten to that point in the evening, that part of the story, when even the least-interesting phrases came with exclamation points. “Thor swung Mjolnir! in a mighty arc! and crushed! the creature’s very skull in a single! blow! It tumbled to the ground, and breathed its last, brought low! by Asgard’s! finest! warrior!” A great cheer went up, tankards and fists pounding the table hard enough to send ripples through the wine in any goblet left un-lifted. Not that there were many, as voices raised with glasses to offer toasts to the heroes of the day: “To Thor!” “To the son of Odin!” “The crown prince!” “Thor!” “The thunderer!”

“My friends!” Thor laughed, “Do not forget my friends, for without their help I could not--” “The Warriors Three!” someone added, and then another, “To Thor and his fellows!” and the general cry resumed. “To glory!” the prince’s laughter boomed, and all joined him in it, and in emptying their drinks.

Sif twisted to locate the serving boy with the pitcher of mead and held up her empty glass until it was filled again. As she waited for him to pour eyes more green than brown skipped across the assembled courtiers. Dancing and laughing were the order of the day, and a great knot of them were at the head of the table jostling for position around Thor, with Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg in their midst. She turned further, and caught Loki grimacing behind his cup. He smiled when he saw her looking, and she smiled back, wondering if the others at the table could see how tight hers felt, how forced his looked. She flicked a glance at those nearby; nobody was looking at them anyway.

There was a flicker of something in Loki’s gaze, lines around his eyes briefly highlighted, and then she felt a presence at her back, a hand on her shoulder, and Thor leaned down. “My brother!” he cried, “Lady Sif! Smile, my friends! They will sing of today’s deeds for generations to come! Come! Lift those glasses, we must all drink to you ne-- just a moment.” The elder prince flashed them a grin wide enough for candlelight to flicker off white teeth before he was gone again, wheeling about to throw an arm around the red-haired beauty just appearing in their periphery and already wiggling her fingers for Thor’s attention. Sif settled a forearm on the table’s edge once more and lifted her cup in unspoken toast before draining its contents.

The room only grew warmer and louder as the feast wore on. After another hour, two more goblets of mead, and three additional tellings of Thor’s exploits (including one by Volstagg and Fandral, so deep in their cups they could scarce get it out for laughing), Sif slipped out of the hall, skirts caught up between her fingers to avoid dragging as she crossed the flagstones. She chose a pillar several down from the glimmering double doors, quieter, darker, but veered off before reaching it, following the covered walkway around the courtyard instead. The soles of her shoes made only the softest scraping sounds against the stones and she wondered if it could count as stalking away without the telltale click of a bootheel striking just so to mark her measured pace.

“Are the celebrations not to your liking, Lady Sif?” The words were spoken nearer than most could get without her noticing, Loki stepping through the torchlight to lean against the balustrade an arm’s length away.

“What is there to dislike?” Sif replied, slowing, “Good drink, good company.” She halted beside him but kept moving, setting down her drink to lean both palms against stone. She stretched out over the railing until, head bowed, she could catch the breeze on the back of her neck.

“Good tales told.” Loki turned just slightly to bring her profile into view. Though it was difficult to see much of her expression from such a vantage, the flex of her jaw was clear enough proof his words had found a tender spot just as he'd suspected. 

“Oh, excellent tales. And told so well. And so many times.” She lifted the dark mass of her hair in a hand and combed fingers through the wisps at the back of her neck where, out of sight, it grew sweat-damp enough to curl, unruly beneath the better-tamed waves.

“Indeed, lady,” the prince agreed, pale eyes slid up paler throat to watch where her teeth were being ground together, “And I should think you well-gratified by the tellings, for I heard your name mentioned not a half-dozen times among them.”

“A half-dozen times for my half-dozen kills. Strange, is it not, how from the first recitation to the last Thor’s count doubled twice over, and the Warriors’ became half again more, but my part remained ever the same? ‘And lo,” Sif recited in a sonorous, over-serious voice that mimicked Bjarn the Bard, the evening’s second interpreter of their adventure, “‘the Lady Sif at her lord’s right hand slew six of the great beasts, adding to the mountain of carcasses at the prince’s feet’.”

Loki’s shoulders rose and fell, made broader by the drape of his green cloak. “A goodly number fo--”

“For a maid?” Sif picked up her goblet with force enough he thought she might crush the metal between her fingers or dash it against stone. Instead she only tossed the wine down her throat and set the empty vessel aside with a ring and a clatter that clashed with her laugh.

“And what of you, your highness?” Sif asked, lips pressed into a smile as she turned toward him, “I heard your name mentioned more times than mine. How many do they say you killed, two? Three? Not so many, but then,” she allowed with a spread of a generous palm, “You were otherwise occupied, doing--” she feigned puzzling it out, head tilted and brows screwed together, all the while stroking Bjarn’s beard in the air beneath her chin, and then shrugged, waving a hand in a vague rune-drawing gesture, “Magic of some sort. I am sure it was useful somehow.”

It was Loki’s turn to smile with teeth instead of eyes. “Somehow.”

Sif returned it, a slender smile but wide enough to show her canines. She turned away then, to watch the drag of her own hands along the rail’s edge, calluses catching on the seams between stones. Loki watched with her until her fingers curled and slid around her cup once more and he shifted his gaze back out into the night. “Someday they will not gloss over us on their way to the others," she said, "Someday they will learn our deeds and sings song of us, and skip past Thor and the Three as merely our companions, who helped out somehow here and there.”

“I had thought you more of a realist than that, lady.” Loki scoffed. “They have had centuries of deeds from us both and have never done so, nor will they ever.”

“I will _make_ them,” Sif hissed through grit teeth, “I will make them get it through their stone skulls, I will beat it into each one if I have to, but they will see it, and they will say it. I am as skilled as anyone who lives, if it were not for Mjolnir I would put Thor on his back every time--”

“That much at least they will believe for they think you do already,” Loki reminded her, his smirk half a sneer, “Though I am sure in their heads you end up on your own back by the end of it. No doubt they wonder why Thor does not show you your place as effectively outside his bedchamber.”

“I should mind my tongue on that subject if I were you, for they say nothing kinder of you than of me,” Sif retorted, “You would not even know where to begin with a woman in your bed, let alone how to ‘put her in her place’, if the tales I hear are to be believed.”

“Are we believing everything we hear now, lady? Perhaps you should simper off to put away your blades and plan how to trap Thor into a wedding, then.”

“Not a bit of it, but you can still bugger off and--”

The hand over her mouth was sudden, the clamp of fingers cutting off words and muffling the surprised noise in her throat. Sif broke Loki's hold with a quick twist and a blow to his elbow, lips parting with a demand she did not voice as he jerked her near and whispered, “Quiet!” 

There was a shimmer of gold in the air just at the edges of her vision, but she was given no time to question it before Thor came stumbling around the nearest pillar, redheaded lady pulled laughing behind him. “I could have sworn I heard Sif,” the elder prince said, eyeing the alcove curiously, gaze bright and slow with drink. Sif shifted as if she might lift a hand to greet him but Loki tightened his grip, pinned her arm to her side with his own and breathed into her ear, “Be still, we are hidden.” Sif canted her head nearer so she might whisper back, but stopped instead to listen.

“Just as well you did not,” said Thor’s companion, “I would not have her grasping at you.” Not when she could be grasping at him herself. “Sif is like a brother to me,” Thor laughed, fascinated suddenly by the drape of the lady’s dress across her shoulder, reaching out with heavy fingers to give it an experimental tug. “A brother, is it?” the lady laughed, letting Thor reel her in the rest of the way with poorly-feigned reluctance, “Well that makes one, I suppose. It all makes sense now if she is the brother and Loki the sister, why else would you let the one have a sword like a man and the other spells like a woman?” 

Sif stiffened, indignation pulling shoulders straight until one pressed to Loki's chest. She could feel his heart beating against her back though it took a moment to separate from the angry thump of her own. It wasn’t either just the rush of blood in her skull that filled her ear but his breath, too, flowing warm over the back, across her neck. She started to turn, tensed to move, to pull away and give Thor’s friend an even more memorable evening than she had hoped for, but Loki held her tighter and while Sif could have fought him off, she did not. It would disgrace them both to be found like this, she knew, not to mention embarrass Thor to have been spied upon. It was too late now to show themselves. She wondered how large an area the illusion concealed, if she could afford to put some space between her spine and Loki’s torso, peel off the hand splayed across her side, draw away from his hip and thigh where they lay against the back of hers. She decided it wasn't worth the risk to try.

Thor laughed, and instead Sif remembered her anger, turned to glare at the back of his blonde head, willing him to speak up in their defense. But he just laughed, and grinned that broad, perfect grin and suggested, “Come, sweet, I think it is time we retire.” The lady required no urging but was easily hurried along by what sounded like a solid swat to the backside. It certainly elicited enough giggling, barely decreasing in volume as Thor’s thumping footsteps took them down the hall.

Sif held entirely still, lest the anger bubbling in her blood prove overwhelming. Muscles twitched and she held them tight enough to tremble, chest constricted around a breath that wanted to rip through her vocal chords and force its way out in a yell. “Let me--” The words came out a barely intelligible growl and she twisted her head around to look at Loki and tell him to let go, let her _go_ , so she could go free her knuckles from her skin against the unyielding walls of her room, but she saw the rage seething behind his eyes, felt the tension in his grip, recognized the signs of a scream held in until bones thrummed with it like tuning forks and for a moment the two of them shook in furious harmony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't really long enough to merit chapters, I just have the first half written and am antsy about it. Second half to follow shortly, I hope.
> 
> The title is from the song '(Hurricane)' by Something Corporate. It came up on shuffle and the line seemed to fit, so sue me.


	2. Chapter 2

And then her lip was scraping across his teeth as mouths crashed together. Sif wasn't sure who had moved first but somehow the hand she'd raised to shove Loki away had ended up a fist in his hair and her grip tugged him closer instead. He didn't seem to need encouragement, her pull and his push putting her back to the pillar with enough force to jar them together. The stone was cold between her shoulderblades and the kiss was hot, all hunger and barely-channeled rage, a wildfire that had jumped the gap between them and exploded into conflagration, lips catching and parting between teeth and panting breaths. Loki's palm on her cheek held Sif's head at an angle and his thumb pressed to the pulse in her throat where it hammered away beneath the skin. She gasped when he lowered his head to drag his tongue across the spot and sucked hard, threatening to tease blood to the surface. 

Conscious thoughts about the wisdom of letting herself be marked so visibly were beyond her but on instinct Sif shoved his head down into the joint of neck and shoulder where her gown just bared her collarbone. She preferred it there anyway, as his mouth traced the dips and hollows of her clavicle, tongue flickering, tempting her to push him lower still. She pulled at layers of leather and gilt, seeking hems and fastenings too well hidden for this sort of encounter. Honestly, when the woman in the corset had the less-complicated outfit what had Asgard come to? 

Her noise of wordless frustration only drew Loki nearer with an answering sound that was half a low chuckle voiced close enough to her ear to send a shiver of want down her neck. He seemed more composed than she and Sif wondered if he had planned this, had seen this coming where she had not, had guessed at the inevitable consequence of a rage she had only just realized she felt. She wondered if she cared. He distracted her with a hand on her breast, a squeeze and a roll of his palm before he tugged down sharply on the neck of her gown, parting stressed seams with a stretch and a rip, and she arched her back, fingers raking across his scalp as Loki ducked his head to take her bared nipple into his mouth. The heat of it was a shocking contrast to the cool of his fingers and lips, the chill of winter air and he engulfed the stiff peak, turning pale skin ruddy as his tongue teased. She gasped at a graze of his teeth and saw him grin, and grinned in turn. No, she didn't care. Maybe later.

How Loki still felt so cool Sif couldn't understand when her own skin blazed everywhere they touched and a few places they didn't. He pinned her there against the stone, long and lean and deceptively strong, holding her back with a hand across her throat when she tried to chase his retreating lips. She pressed into his touch until her breath dragged shallow and reached between them, slid her hand along his length through the leather from root to tip as near as she could manage. She was gratified when this time it was Loki's breath that caught. His grip on her throat tightened reflexively when she palmed him and squeezed and he made a rough noise and dragged teeth across the swell of her breast in warning. His hands went to her thighs and grasped and lifted and she rucked up her skirts until she could wrap long legs around him, knees clamping at narrow hips.

Nothing good was going to come of thinking too long on the fact that it was Loki pressed tight against her, of the possibility that this might be some cruel trick played out too far, some longish-con she would pay the price for when they were done. She knew she was already too far gone to fling herself away and surely, surely even he couldn't counterfeit this well. He pushed closer between her legs and she gasped and bit at his lip. Their kiss was full of teeth, ragged and already frantic, broken by impatient noises as she rocked her hips into his and he ground back against her. Even through layers she could feel him, what had to be uncomfortably hard in tight trousers. It seemed a mercy to free him and surely that was why she scrabbled for his laces, snapping one in her hurry, snapping the rest in the rush of frustration that followed. He laughed against her jaw and her own underthings disappeared, magic shimmering between them like static against her skin. Sif nipped at his ear for making her bother and for showing off and to hold in a laugh of her own, then released just as quickly to inhale as long fingers slipped between her thighs. 

Loki's eyes went wide beneath heavy lids and she was as surprised as he at just how wet she already was, slick enough beneath his touch that she wondered if that was magic, too. It felt like it, buzzing beneath her skin, fuzzing out the world beyond the pillar at her back, his chest against hers, torchlight on dark hair, and the clever slide of his cool touch as he teased her open. She scraped nails through his hair and pulled his mouth to hers, all tongue and no breath. Her lips clung to his through a gasp as he dropped his hand to himself and entered her, one sharp push and his teeth pressed to her jaw, opening around a silent moan. He moved quick and hard and immediately, drawing back only far enough to jolt them both against the stone, making ruin of her silk and her sense with each thrust. Neither of them breathed a word though he swallowed a groan and she muffled a curse against his shoulder. Arms twined around him, nails in his nape clenching each time he drove into her.

A pull on her hair drew her head up so he could crush his mouth to hers again and then abruptly he shoved her face into his shoulder, going completely still against her, fingers a bruising vise-grip on her thigh. She bit him in protest and Loki flinched against her but released his grip on her head. She picked it up sharply and opened her mouth to question or protest but found the breath stolen from her lungs by a shock of magic that thrilled through the core of her and crackled up her spine and down her limbs. When the gold-green stars faded from her eyes the terrace around them had dissolved into her chambers and for a moment Sif was disoriented, and surprised she could not see his power still sparking across their skin. "What--?" The word came out so breathy and uncertain she barely recognized herself. "Einherjar," Loki replied, and his voice had dropped lower, reverberating in his chest in a way that sent another shiver through her, clenching around him. 

It wasn't enough to prevent the realization that they were stood in the middle of her cold but well-lit sitting room, Sif's long legs wrapped around Loki's hips, his hands splayed across her backside and his cock still inside her. She suddenly felt the exposure as she had not when they were nearly in public, the miles of pale skin exposed by bunched up skirts and torn neckline, and the strange vulnerability of him holding her in the air. He was very still against her, a tension she could feel in his shoulders that was more than just exertion and restraint. She thanked _yggdrasil_ they were too close to accidentally make eye-contact, and instead watched the column of his throat as he swallowed, the play of muscle just inside the high collar of his shirt. She inhaled out of rhythm, not quite a gasp but a flutter in lungs and belly that made his jaw clench. She licked her lips. Somewhere between awkward and mesmerized they remained until she finally said, "The floor," and though her voice caught before she could manage more clarity Loki understood. 

She held on as he moved to lay her down on the carpet, her little noise of discomfort matching his grimace as he drew free of her. He paused on his knees to with a gesture douse the lights and kindle a fire in the hearth and she watched him above her. He was a strange sight for the usually fastidious prince, his hair in disarray, almost fully clothed but half his straps and layers hanging un-buckled, collar askew, and the pale contrast at his crotch where her eyes lingered on his erection, unaffected by the pause or the chill or the weird uncertainty that had arisen with their relocation. Sif realized she was staring and abruptly could not remain still any longer and so she sat up, grabbing her ruined gown by the shoulders and hauling it up and off, shift with it, balling both and tossing them aside. She tugged on corset lacing as Loki stared, and she gave him an expectant look and gestured at his thoroughly covered chest. "Well?"

He gazed a moment longer, blue eyes licked green by firelight, and then with a shimmer all his layers melted away and hers too and he leaned forward to plant a hand beside her shoulder and loom naked over her. He didn't meet her eyes, head bent as he took in her slender form beneath him, free hand hovering just above her side, fingertips not quite grazing her ribs. He took a deep breath and let it go in unsteady silence, finally looking up. His eyes were wide, all the furious rush of earlier gone, replaced by something she had never seen there and could not quite put name to. She could see the pulse that hammered in his throat and when he leaned nearer she could hear the shallow quickness of his breath and she almost, almost said-- something, almost asked if he was well, almost touched his cheek and drew him gently down because it seemed right in that moment, it seemed like the thing to do. 

She somehow felt sure at least that it needed to be her, that he was not -- somehow could not now -- make this second first move, and so she picked her head up off the floor and with a tenderness neither of them had expected pressed her swollen lips to his. They parted beneath hers and she coaxed him into her mouth, slowly, slowly twining an arm about his neck, drawing him near. When finally he settled his weight on her, the smooth plane of his chest rested on her breasts and his hardness trapped into the crease of her thigh, she let out a sigh and reached between them to draw him back in. Both their breaths caught when he thrust, and her limbs encircled him as they moved, slow and nearly still except for where hips rocked and ground together and his lips traced the soft skin just beneath her jaw. His hair fell on her brow and cheek and she ran her fingers through it when he lowered his head to her shoulder, mouth pressed to her skin to muffle a groan that sounded like a prayer, that sounded like her name. 

Sif could not have said how long they lay there, entranced and entangled in the wake of their fury, their sprint stretched to a marathon. It had never really been Sif's style to draw out her encounters but she found herself putty in his long-fingered hands as much as he was in hers and she was loathe to deny the slow heat that filled her. It built steadily with each touch, each slide of lips and tongues and hips, until they both trembled with tension and the effort of denying it. Loki leaned his forehead against hers and eye to eye they gasped for breath until Sif let her lids drop against the bright heat of a climax that snatched her out of her skin even as she felt each nerve and heard the wordless echo of her own cry. She held Loki as tight as still-trembling limbs allowed as he quaked and bucked, sharp jaw clenched around a helpless noise as he spasmed within her.

They slept for a while after, too dazed to move, and so it was some hours later that they were woken by a chill draft to find themselves sprawled across her floor, twined together, sweat long dried between them. Sif stared at the ceiling and tried to recall that feeling that had possessed her, the connection of their coupling or the frenzy of before. She just felt cold and intensely conscious of the prince plastered to her, and not even the one she might have guessed would someday end up in her bed. He was all elbows and too-long hair that hid his face, skinny limbs draped across hers and she found she did not want to know what he would say when he rose, did not want to see the smirk, that triumphant, knowing little smugness that would have to follow, or hear the quip he was bound to make at her expense. She did not want to see what expression he would wear if it was not that. She did not really want to see anything at all. 

She shoved him unceremoniously onto the rug and sprang to her feet, crossing the room with a quick slap of bare feet on the floor to collect a blanket from a couch and cover herself from neck to ankle. 

"L-- Wake up," she nudged him with a foot and Loki opened his eyes, blinking up at her. "You need to go. Before someone notices." His mouth shut again where it had opened, jaw working once as he sat up before he inclined his head in polite acknowledgment. "Of course," he said, clothed again with a will and a flash, once more armor-plated. He produced his helmet from the air as he stood and slid it on, the wings at his jaw obscuring his mouth in profile. "Better none know of this little… dalliance," he said, with a waggle of his fingers at the carpet before he slid a look sidelong at Sif, challenging her to disagree. Her "of course," came easily and she wondered why she felt affronted even as she told him, "It was-- a strange evening. It will not happen again." 

"Certainly not," he agreed. It was all too easy but she did not know how to press him further or why she might and so Sif simply nodded, adding after a pause, "Good evening." He swept a bow and the twist of his smile made her stomach churn. "It was my pleasure as always, Lady." He didn't bother to use the door but simply was not where a moment ago he had been, leaving behind the echo of his laugh. 

Sif circled her room twice before throwing a log into the fire and sitting heavily on the couch, a blanket-wrapped fist pressed to her mouth, feeling every thread against the plump bruise of her lip. 

Across the palace Loki set his helmet on a stand and ran hands into his hair, head bowed into his palms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd actually like to just combine these two chapters into one since this isn't a work that really needs or benefits from being chaptered. I may sometime in the future, but figure I will leave them for now so that maybe people will notice it's been updated with more words. (Seventy five years after I said there would be.)


End file.
